Are you among the thousands of professionals willing to explore the world of Data Science? Chances are you do not have prior experience in the field, but you are ready to upskill yourself and demonstrate in front of the hiring managers that you can be a well-versed Data Science Engineer. This article will help you understand what skills you need to acquire to become capable of handling the responsibilities of a data science engineer. We would further discuss how a data science course can help you get certified and broaden your array of skills to make a great resume.
Skills Needed To Become A Data Science Engineer
Every job role in an organization is associated with a specific set of skills required to perform the assigned tasks. Similarly, a professional involved in a data science role needs to have the following skills.
- Knowledge of programming languages like Python, R, or Java is crucial to solving statistical problems, creating datasets, and working on various algorithms.
- You’ll need to do the numerical computation for which knowledge of statistics, probability, and calculus will be beneficial.
- The data science process involves storing data for which you need to have a firm grasp of databases like Oracle, MySQL, or Cassandra.
- The step of data cleaning and processing requires one to be proficient in data engineering that includes data preprocessing and data wrangling.
- Machine learning is also an important area to learn for a data science role. Become well-versed in using machine learning algorithms like a k-nearest neighbor, random forests, regression, and more.
- Though not a prerequisite, understanding of Hadoop is also beneficial, Hadoop is useful in data exploration, filtration, sampling, and summarization.
- After the data is processed, it also needs to be visualized to convey the patterns to the stakeholders. For this, knowledge of data visualization tools like Tableau, Power BI, or QlikView is essential.
Top Certifications In Data Science
Apart from the skills you need to acquire, there are specific industry-recognized certifications in the field of data science, which can help validate your skills even if you do not have any prior experience. Certifications offered by Cloudera, Hortonworks, IBM, SAS, etc. are highly regarded by companies across the world to find the right candidates for data science positions. So, take a look at some of the popular certifications here.
Cloudera Certified Associate: Data Analyst
Professionals who are working as SQL developers, data analysts, business intelligence specialists, developers, system architects, and database administrators can pursue this certification. It helps candidates perform core competencies required to pull and generate reports in the CDH environment of Cloudera using Hive and Impala. To achieve this certification, one needs to pass the CCA Data Analyst Exam (CCA 159). The exam consists of 8-12 performance-based questions to be answered in 120 minutes.
Dell EMC Data Science Associate Certification
The Data Science Associate certification enables learners to have a practical foundational level of data science so that they can contribute towards big data and other analytics-related projects. The associated exam for this certification is the DEA-7TT2 Associate – Data Science and Big Data Analytics v2 Exam. Some of the areas where you will be tested include the main phases of the data analytics lifecycle, exploring data with R, statistics for model building, and tools for advanced analytics.
IBM Data Science Professional Certificate
This certificate is offered in collaboration with Coursera. Learners who get this certification have demonstrated skills in applying data science methodology, working with Jupyter notebook, creating applications with Python, using Python libraries for data visualizations, and more. To achieve this certificate, learners need to complete a training program of Coursera that consists of nine courses dealing with a wide range of data science topics. Further, you also need to solve the associated quizzes, assignments, and projects.
Professional Certificate in Data Science by Harvard University
This certificate is offered in collaboration with EdX. It requires learners to complete a series of courses that include basics of R, data visualization, probability theory, inference and modeling, productivity tools like GitHub, Git, RStudio, data wrangling, regression, and machine learning. After you complete the courses, your ability to apply the gained skills practically will be tested through a capstone. The courses also include motivating case studies to help reinforce your learning.
Do You Need To Enroll In A Data Science Course?
Well, the task of proving your skills in front of employers without having any experience isn’t easy. But, you can move way ahead of your competitors by taking up a data science course. Whenever you are new to a field, it is often confusing to understand what are the actual skills that employers look for. This is where a data science course can help. Training from reputable institutes will not only make you aware of the essential concepts to master but will also offer guidance from industry experts. As they are aware of the latest trends and best practices for data science projects, you will be better prepared for facing any interview and showing your competency. So, take this one step and watch your career growing.
